ICS girls get first win

The Immanuel Christian girls basketball team got 17 points from Elicia Hazlewood and another 13 points from Jennifer Mondragon in beating Mojave 41-20 Thursday in Mojave.

Brad KesterDI Sportsdisportsdesk@ridgecrestca.com

MOJAVE — The Immanuel Christian girls basketball team got 17 points from Elicia Hazlewood and another 13 points from Jennifer Mondragon in beating Mojave 41-20 Thursday in Mojave.Both players shot over 40 percent from the field in the win."They are a good tag team to have," ICS Coach Bob Smith said of his two top scorers. "Elicia didn't miss much, but when she did, Jennifer was there to rebound it and either score or to pass it out for a new possession."Mondragon had 12 offensive rebounds on the night and has 22 offensive rebounds in two games this season."Jennifer is relentless underneath," Smith said. Mondragon had 16 of the Crusaders' 29 total rebounds in the game.With both Hazlewood and Mondragon playing well, Smith said it allowed Morgan Lieser to get open looks as well.Lieser had four points on 2-of-5 shooting. She is the outside threat for the Crusaders, who need her to hit jump shots to open up zone defenses.A game after shooting 8-of-38 from inside six feet, the Crusaders focused on that part of their game.This time around, ICS shot 53 percent from the painted area."I think the girls really focus on where the hoop was and where they needed to get the ball on the backboard to make the ball go in the basket," Smith said. "It was nice to see our players really focus on that."Smith said his team came out and pressed early on to wear down the Mustangs. It worked as Immanuel held Mojave scoreless in the first period. Even with the scoreless quarter, Smith wasn't totally pleased."I thought we got a little sluggish," Smith said. "Mojave wasn't very fast so we slowed down a lot. We only scored eight points in the first quarter and I thought we should have had at least 16 to 20."At the end of the first quarter, the game was 8-0 and by halftime, it was 17-9. In the second half, ICS picked up the scoring in getting 14 in the third quarter and another 10 in the fourth."For the most part, I thought we played pretty well in the second half. We need to keep up those double-digit scoring quarters to put pressure on other teams," Smith said.The Crusaders move on to play Lone Pine at 5 p.m. Dec. 4 at the Kerr McGee Center. It'll be the Crusaders' first home game of the season.